SATIRE: Barnaby Joyce is not the conservative Messiah, he's a very naughty boy

I wasn't there as a journalist: I was there as his friend - our relationship extending back to when we bounced together at Armidale's Wicklow Hotel in the 1980s.

However, what I witnessed on the campaign trail left me feeling compelled to write about it, given the distinct possibility he will shoot himself in the foot ahead of the 2022 election. For I believe that what I witnessed perfectly illustrates my belief that, like Trump, Barnaby could do just about anything and not lose his core support base.

But what about the countless people who don't support him, who abhor one of Australia's most polarising politicians? What I'm about to reveal also concerns them - and it will surely shock you to the core.

Anyway, political pundits have posited a number of reasons for Barnaby's teflon status, although it's pretty clear they don't have a clue.

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What obviously matters most is how New England voters feel about him. And the fact that he was re-elected with a small swing in his favour, despite all the negative press about him, is telling.

But what it doesn't tell you is the empirical extent to which his supporters will overlook his errant behaviour. That job, I decided, falls with me.

Doing so may end our friendship. But I'm certain it needs to be done, even if it results in just one person never again being deluded into thinking the man's a dead duck politically.

I'll start by detailing his conversation with a voter at a Tamworth pub one night. Standing at the bar, the rugged 50-something farmer asked him what he planned to do about the drought.

Barnaby replied: "I don't know about that, but I do know that I've got a major drought happening on my palate." He then leaned over and grabbed the farmer's near-full schooner and skulled it - wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and belching loudly.

Later, I asked the farmer if he still planned to vote for Barnaby, and he said: "He's a very naughty boy, our Barnaby. But, in all honesty, he could kick my dog and he wouldn't lose my support."

"What if he slept with your wife?" I said.

The farmer laughed raucously. "Now, why would he do that?" he replied.

The following afternoon, Barnaby and I had dinner at an Armidale retirement home. While munching on snapper, he got into an animated discussion with a resident - a sprightly, stocky man with broad shoulders. The discussion heated up when the resident said Sir Joh should have been jailed. Barnaby slammed his hand on the table and said: "You ... you ...!"

The resident screamed: "Someone help! He's choking on a fish bone!"

"I'm not choking, you goose."

"Why's your face so red, then?"

Barnaby demanded the resident retract his statement about Sir Joh, or never vote for him again.

"Get stuffed, Barnaby. I'll be voting for you, whether you like it or not."

We then adjourned to a meeting space for bingo. Before the game started, Barnaby mingled among the residents, a seemingly normal act for a politician. But he was looking for a mark, whom he found and then sat next to during bingo. And when the mark's card got within one number of winning, he leapt up, pointed at the entrance and yelled: "Strewth! It's my ex!" As everyone looked that way, he switched his card with the mark's. A few minutes later, when seven was called out, he punched air and hollered: "Bingo! You bloody beauty!"

Post-game I spoke in private to the mark, a dead ringer for the late Queen Mum, and revealed what Barnaby had done. She said: "I knew that, dear. He's done the same thing at retirement homes all over the place. In fact, it's the second time he's done it to me. But no one cares. He's a very naughty boy, our Barnaby, but we love him."

Fast forward to last Saturday night, when Barnaby and I downed stubbies on the verandah of his home and I explained my theory on voter tolerance towards him.

"Go for your life, mate," he said, when I told him that I planned to detail the theory in an article. "No one will believe you. You're a bullshit artist. Everyone knows that."

Barnaby swigged a VB, dragged a ciggie and stubbed it out in an astray. He then put on the giant head, stood up and walked ungainly on to the front lawn, where he was illuminated by a spotlight. Or I should say, Keith the Koala was illuminated.

The custom-made koala outfit with red overalls is designed to soften Barnaby's image by targeting voters who recoil at the mention of his name, at the sight of a melon that looks like it has been slapped continuously since birth.

"Whaddya reckon, mate?" he said. "I plan to unveil it when the election date has been set."

"You know how I feel. You've got a rhino-tough hide, but how much ridicule can one man endure? And, again, why do you feel the need to ingratiate yourself with them?"

"Mate, Keith just wants to be loved!"

I chuckled. "You're a trip, Barnaby, you really are. And by the way, what's with the shoes?"

He wore closed-toe black stilettos with four-inch heels. "They're Vikki's," he said. "I'm breaking them in for her."

As the deputy prime minister returned to the verandah, a heel plugged in the lawn and he careened towards me like Play School on LSD.

Mark Bode is an ACM journalist. He uses satire and fiction in commentary.